Study Buddy
by reality-be-rent
Summary: Ralph leaves studying until the last minute, and looks for help from a certain someone. The result of that choice? You'll have to read it to find out. No slash.


**Hey there! I'm back with another (crappy) one shot for anyone who wants to read it! Here goes:**

 **I do NOT own Lord of the Flies, nor the characters associated with it. That privilege goes to Sir William Golding.**

 **Let's roll**

* * *

 **Study Buddy**

" _Remember now, Ralph, if you don't get a higher grade – meaning at least a C – on Monday's upcoming exam, coach will be kicking you off the team until you pull your act together."_

And that's how Ralph Bennett found himself standing outside a certain somebody's room at nine o'clock Sunday night; last minute, of course. He'd tried doing revision on his own, he honestly had! But he'd always had the unfortunate trait of having the attention span of Dory, so he'd basically procrastinated the entire weekend. And by procrastinating, I mean sneaking away to play rugby with Eric, which was ironic seeing as rugby was what had gotten him here in the first place.

But now the fun and games was over because it was freaking Sunday night and the test is _tomorrow_. In other words: he's fucked.

As previously stated, he's standing outside somebody's dorm room door, and not just anybody's dorm room door either: Jack Merridew's. That's right, Jack Merridew; the Head boy, Chief chorister, and the kid in charge of tuck during break. Yes, man, this guy has a lot of authority. But, more importantly, he takes his studies very seriously and he's definitely the smartest kid in Ralph's Spanish class (OK, all his classes). This ginger had straight A's – if anyone could help Ralph in so little time, it would be Jack. Only a slight problem there: they hate each other.

Ralph switches between going in for a knock and biting his non-existent fingernails (he gets nervous before a match, OK). _Grow a pair, Ralphie boy._

He knocks loudly, three or four times, and waits for Jack to open the door. He knows that Jack's in; he'd never be out so late the night before school. If he concentrates, he can hear someone wailing curse words from inside the room. This catches his attention and, deciding he's waited long enough, he barges in. he heads straight to the room where the noise is emitting.

Jack's on his knees…. Holding Roger's hips. You can probably see how this looked incredibly wrong. Both boys turn to look at Ralph's whose having trouble standing up straight; Ralph looked like he was having a seizure. "should I…. should I maybe – well, I could come back later, if that's OK – yeah, bye." Ralph manages, before turning around quickly and hurling himself towards the door.

"wait!" he pauses, turns around even. Jack is crab running backwards, away from Roger, as fast as he possibly can but only manages to knock into a table, sending a flower pot crashing down on his head. "ow…."

Roger's reaction is less dramatically entertaining as he can only be bothered to roll his eyes, but Ralph catches him gagging slightly from the thought. "In your dreams, Bennett."

".. W-Well, hey, if that's what your into."

* * *

"Why are you even here, Bennett?"

Ralph relays his predicament to Jack (and a nosy Roger): how his rugby career is going to go out the window and blahdy blahdy blaah other things Jack doesn't care about.

"How the fuck is that my problem? _You're_ fucking Dory, not me."

"I thought you and Dory were just friends..."

"Shut up, Roger, this is nothing to do with you so kindly take your sarcastic comments and shove them up you-" the glance Roger sends him tells him not to push his luck. He gulps, but looks Jack in the eyes: it was time, "awwwww, c'mon Merridew." Yeup, Ralph brings out the begging _as well_ as his infamous puppy dog eyes.

Unfortunately, it doesn't have quite the effect he was going for because Jack is cringing, and even Roger – _Roger –_ looks slightly disturbed….. heh…. Like his tee shirt.

"Please put that thing away. God, and people think the reason that you don't have a girlfriend is because you're bent for that fat kid."

"I'm not fucking bent! I just think people should be a little nicer to him is all. And anyway, we all know that I'm God's gift to women. I'm just out of your league and you can't handle it." Ralph strikes what he thinks is a confident – but is actually ridiculous – pose.

"What I can't handle right now is your shit."

Ralph sighs almost inaudibly, "look, if you help me I'll… I'll….." suddenly a light bulb goes off in Ralph's head, and he pokes Jack hard in the chest with a triumphant smile on his face. "I'll get you a date with Eleanor Pope." Roger bites his hand quickly, in fear of laughing.

"She's fat and not to mention ugly.… AND SHE'S FUCKING TWELVE!"

"-Actually, she just looks twelve, she's actually sixte-"

"OH, OH THAT'S FAN FUCKING TASTIC. MARVELLOUS! I WON'T BE A PAEDOPHILE: I'LL JUST LOOK LIKE ONE INSTEAD!"

Roger doesn't even try to hold it in any longer and starts howling with laughter, doubling over a little bit. "Pope? She's basically Piggy in drag."

"Sarah Matthews," says Jack, "or I'm out."

Ralph throws up his arms in surrender and exclaims: "alright, alright! I'll hook you up with the lovely miss Matthews.…..… no guarantees though: most women like guys with souls ya see, my fine ginger… so do we have a deal?"

Jack smirks, "deal."

* * *

"You piece of shit!"

"Look, I'm _trying_ alright!"

"Trying?! Mother of fuck!"

Ralph's face is scrunched up in concentration, Jack looks torn between swiping everything off his desk and crying or strangling the boy beside him, and Roger's doing God-knows-what on his laptop on the other side of the table.

"OK, OK…. let's just go back to the basics…. Yes." Jack seems to be trying to convince himself more than the struggling blond. He flips a few pages backwards. He sets his finger down on a random question. "now, you should be able to translate this question." Ralph nods, before getting straight to it. Jack gives him a couple minutes, busying himself with making paper aeroplanes and chucking them at Roger. He only gets a middle finger and a kick from under the table in return; Roger is feeling merciful today it seems. Jack takes a deep breath and turns to the damsel in distress beside him, leaning in to look at Ralph's work. "NO!" He howls, yanking the pencil away. He looks to the window longingly, as if contemplating a swan dive, before flipping back even further into the book. Roger snorts, but makes no other contribution. He simply returns to listening to his fucking emo music or some shit.

"Ugh… try _this_ one." Jack drops the heavy textbook in front of his pupil.

Ralph genuinely thinks he's getting the hang of it; he went back to the basics, and he crawled his way to the very top! He always knew he could do it if he really knuckled down. He'd be back to playing rugby lickity split. What was he? That's right. He was a fucking Spanish God. He was the shit.

Meanwhile, Roger pops his head over Ralph's shoulder and scans the page. Ralph took a little peak at the noirette's expression, and a clear 'wtf' look was plastered to his face. "Correction: you're not _the_ shit….. you're just _shit_."

Had he said all that out loud? "Basically, yeah."

The little conversation gets Jack's attention, and he waltzes over, takes one look, crumples up Ralph's paper and he eats it. He calmly walks out of the room as if eating paper is as normal as chowing down on a cereal bar, muttering: "bathroom", leaving Ralph and Roger in silence.

OK, Ralph's known Roger for quite a long time now; a good few years at least. But he's never, ever landed himself in a situation where he's been alone with him. He'd guessed well enough that Roger was the silent type, but this wasn't your average silence where you both just get on with what you're doing. No, it consisted of Roger watching him work, sniggering silently to himself with almost every sentence he wrote. _Cocky bastard, I'd like to see him try. Fuck it, this it too awkward._

"Sooooooo… you're a fan of Disturbed, I see."

"No, I found this in the fucking trash actually and thought it would look really good on me." He dead pans, but then remembers the situation Ralph's in and smirks: "look, you're doing it all completely wrong. That's definitely not the right translation at all. That is, unless you're a paedophile." Ralph chokes on his spit. "You wrote 'I like to touch children'.

Ralph glares uncertainly: "How would you know?"

"I take Spanish obviously, you turd."

"Well, I've never seen you!" Exclaims Ralph, too preoccupied by the fact that he's been taking classes with this guy for two years and he didn't even notice, to take offence to the insult.

"I sit at the back," Roger explains, "besides, I wouldn't say you were the most attentive one, would you, Goldilocks?"

"Whatever..."

"You're gonna fail, Ralphie." Roger says in a sing song voice. Ralph slams down his pencil in frustration, but Roger's smirk remains fixed. "Fine. If you're so _smart,_ then you help me instead."

If it's even possible, Roger's smirk widens, "gladly."

* * *

Jack returns about fifteen minutes later after taking a relaxing shower break. Honestly, anything he could think of to get away from the stressed out idiot currently sitting at his desk. He'd left him with some work that he'd (hopefully) be able to do, and then they would be in the clear to move onto some harder stuff.

Jack enters his bedroom: Ralph's hunched over his work, switching between chewing the end of his pencil and tapping it repeatedly onto the table in concentration. Jack shifts his gaze slightly and sees Roger hanging from the top bunk, upside down with his music ablazing.

Jack releases Ralph's iron grip from the work sheet and his eyes immediately begin to scan. He's pleasantly surprised. "Not bad, Ralphie, not bad at all." The fair haired boy beams at Jack's clearly impressed (and slightly shell-shocked) expression, which lasts all the way down to the bottom of the page. And that is when he sees it. He reads it aloud, making sure he's read it right:

"Eres una prostituta de ¡engibre."

"You fucking shit!"

Needless to say, Ralph isn't able to (physically) make it to school the next day, let alone take the Spanish test. But let's face it: with Roger's impeccable "teaching", he'd have failed anyway.

 **Fin**

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 **Aaaaaand that's it, folks. I really hope you enjoyed! If you did, please leave a review, and if you didn't like it, then tell me about it and then I can find ways to improve!**

 **Thank you for taking the time to read this little one shot! (Please don't kill me for my failed attempt at humour!)**

 **~reality-be-rent~**


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